THE CLAM-PLATE ORGY: And Other Subliminals the Media Use to Manipulate Your Behavior

KIRKUS REVIEW

More eyebrow-raising nonsense from the author of Subliminal Seduction (1973) and Media Sexploitation (1976), with one big difference: to the stance of media prophet, Key has added that of media martyr. He claims to have been harassed out of a tenured professorship at the University of Western Ontario (with an out-of-court settlement of $64,000); badgered by the media that would consent to interview him (one Boston news show bathed him in ""monster lighting""); and generally censored by the up-to-no-good ad industry. None of this really fazes Key, who thinks that the correctness of his thesis expands in direct proportion to the degree of outrage it engenders (never does he consider the possible outrageousness of his accusations). Otherwise, it's business at the same old stand: the title derives from a Howard Johnson placemat advertising clam-plates, supposedly, through subliminal air brushings of oral sex and bestiality (else how explain the fact that Key ordered it, when he hates clams?). Key has also researched subliminal messages in the fine arts, and discovered fellatio on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, numerous embeddings of the word ""Sex"" in Norman Rockwell paintings, and the same word peeking anomalously from a Rembrandt. All these fancies and more might carry some weight if Key gave evidence of acquaintanceship with the ad industry, or even of understanding how large corporations work. If there's anything at all to these assertions, then Key isn't the one to prove it; he's better at putting across his own notoriety.

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